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Browse Folklore Genres

The William A. Wilson Digital Folklore Archive is divided into 15 genre collections, in addition to BYU student folklore projects. Folklore manuscripts predating the digital archive (1950-2019) can be found in our physical repository at the Harold B. Lee Library in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections. The digital repository is still under construction. We invite you to return each semester as new content will be uploaded and made available online.

• Student Projects

  Folklore papers written by Brigham Young University students as their final course project.

  • Projects on Supernatural Religious Legends
  • Projects on Supernatural Non-religious legends
  • Projects on Human Condition Legends
  • Projects on Character Legends
  • Projects on Etiological Legends
  • Projects on Contemporary Legends
  • Projects on Personal Narratives
  • Projects on Material Culture
  • Projects on Folktales/Jokes
  • Projects on Beliefs
  • Projects on Speech
  • Projects on Riddles
  • Projects on Songs
  • Projects on Customs
  • Projects on Games
• Supernatural Religious Legends

  Legends with distinct religious themes.

  • Legends about appearances & manifestations of supernatural beings and revenants
  • Legends about solicited and unsolicited divine intervention
  • Punishments, curses and afflictions
  • Out-of-body-experiences
  • Instances of glossolalia (speaking in unknown languages)
  • Premonitions, dreams and visions
  • Forecasts and prophecies
  • Legends of religious buildings or objects
  • Legends about patriarchal blessings
  • Saints’ legends
• Supernatural Non-religious Legends

  Legends about supernatural events of a non-religious character.

  • Legends on revanants appearing
  • Legends on unexplained phenomena
  • Legends on supernatural powers
  • Legends on supernatural games and objects
  • Legends on supernatural creatures
• Human Conditions (Coming Soon)

  Legends about various aspects of the human condition.

  • Legends on wars
  • Legends on ethnic or religious encounters
  • Legends on misconceptions of a specific group
  • Legends on slavery
  • Legends on migration
  • Legends on poverty and wealth
  • Legends on money, treasure, and the law
  • Legends on occupation or avocation (hobby or minor occupation)
  • Legends on courtship or marriage
  • Legends on family
  • Legends on polygamy
  • Legends on animals, nature, and weather
  • Legends on sickness
  • Legends on human traits
  • Legends on local or family characters
• Character Legends (Coming Soon)

  Legends about notable characters throughout time.

  • Legends about notable historical characters
  • Legends about notable contemporary characters
• Etiological Legends (Coming Soon)

  Legends that explain the origin of supernatural or social phenomenon.

  • Legends about celestial phenomena and meteorological events
  • Legends about the origin of earth and geographic features
  • Legends about the origin of animals and animal characteristics
  • Legends about the origin of people and human characteristics
  • Legends about the origin of plants
  • Legends about the origin of beliefs
  • Legends about origin customs
  • Legends about place names
  • Legends about the origin of product names and products
  • Legends about surnames and genealogy
  • Miscellaneous etiological legends
• Contemporary Legends

  Often contemporary legends are told as having occurred among family or friends, sometimes referred to as a friend of a friend legend.

  • Automobile legends
  • Animal legends
  • Horror legends
  • Accident legends
  • Sex and scandal legends
  • Crime legends
  • Business and professional legends
  • Celebrity rumors and legends
  • Academic legends
  • Household legends
  • Missionary legends
  • Sacrament meeting legends
  • Legends about missing swimmers
  • Miscellaneous contemporary legends
• Personal Narratives

  Narratives told from a first-person perspective.

  • Women’s narratives
  • Men’s narratives
  • Religious narratives
  • Supernatural narratives
  • Dream narratives
  • Brigham Young University narratives
  • Family narratives
  • Pioneer and early Mormon history narratives
  • Immigrant narratives
  • Travel narratives
  • Improvised or fictive narratives
  • Occupational narratives
  • Physical ailment narratives
  • Sports narratives
  • Military service narratives
  • Narratives about confronting death
  • Lamentations about yesterday
  • Disaster narratives
  • Speech error narratives
  • Miscellaneous narratives
• Material Lore

  Refers to objects that people design, create, collect or use, includes the beliefs and practices of the people who use them.

  • Family material lore
  • Landscape material lore
  • Occupational material lore
  • Personal material lore
  • Religious material lore
  • Foodways material lore
• Folktales and Jokes (Coming Soon)

  Stories that are passed down from generations to generation, often orally.

  • Animal folktakes
  • Ordinary folktakes
  • Jokes and anecdota
  • Formula tales (predictable narrative/plot)
  • Tall tales
• Beliefs (Coming Soon)

  Beliefs that are passed down from generation to generation, often informally.

  • Beliefs about diseases, ailments, and remedies
  • Collection of general cure-alls
  • Beliefs about emotional or mental conditions
  • Collection of signs and portents of sickness or ailment
  • Beliefs in Anatomical phenomena as signs and portents
  • Beliefs about health, hygiene, and beauty
  • Beliefs about love, courtship, marriage, and homosexuality
  • Beliefs about pregnancy, birth, infancy, and childhood
  • Beliefs about dying, death, and funeral customs
  • Beliefs about food preservation and preparation
  • Beliefs about food and eating
  • Beliefs in and about the house
  • Beliefs about cloth, clothing, sewing, and adornment
  • Beliefs about prosperity and wealth
  • Beliefs about work, trades, and professions
  • Beliefs about friends and visitors
  • Beliefs about enemies, thieves, liars, and murderers
  • Religious beliefs
  • Beliefs about recreation, sports, and games
  • Beliefs about travel
  • Beliefs about good luck and good fortune
  • Beliefs about bad luck
  • Beliefs about communication and language
  • Beliefs about wishes
  • Beliefs about sleep, dreams, and dreaming
  • Beliefs about holidays and celebrations
  • Beliefs about times and numbers
  • Beliefs about major storms, floods, and physical disasters
  • Beliefs about cosmic phenomena
  • Beliefs about plants and plant husbandry
  • Beliefs about animals and animal husbandry
  • Beliefs about witchcraft, ghosts, magic, and evil spirits
  • Beliefs about fortune telling and divination
  • Beliefs about good spirits
  • Beliefs about supernatural creatures, fairies, elves, leprechauns, etc.
  • Beliefs about technology
  • Ethnic and racial beliefs
• Speech

  The traditional or expressive use of language by ordinary people, including dialect and style.

  • Proverbs, proverb-like sayings, and homilies (sermons)
  • Proverbial comparisons
  • Children’s rhymes and sayings
  • Fun and humorous rhymes and sayings
  • Occupational and avocational rhymes and sayings
  • Written rhymes, poetry, and sayings
  • Parodies
  • Folk speech
  • Colloquialisms
  • Phrase substitutes
  • Farcical rhymes
  • Wellerisms, tongue twisters. and pick-up lines
  • Folk poetry
  • Spoonerisms or shaggy dog stories
• Riddles

  Questions or statements with a double veiled meaning. Riddles also include visual puzzles.

  • True riddles
  • Droodles
  • Rebuses
• Songs (Coming Soon)

  Traditional songs often passed down through families or other folk groups.

  • Nonsense songs
  • Songs about the body
  • Songs about food
  • Foreign language songs
  • Songs about animals
  • Songs about occasion
  • Songs about marching
  • Songs about death
  • Songs about love
  • Songs about drinking
  • Songs about drugs
  • Songs about lullabies and reveilles
  • Songs about people
  • Songs about places
  • Songs about religion
  • Songs about domestic things
  • Camp songs
  • Children’s school songs
  • College songs
• Customs

  Traditional practices passed down from generation to generation, often orally.

  • Courtship and marriage customs
  • Family traditions
  • Avocation Customs
  • Occupation customs
  • Household customs
  • Customs relating to friends
  • School customs
  • Holiday customs
  • Religious customs
  • Death and funeral customs
  • Miscellaneous customs
• Games

  Traditional games passed down from generation to generation, often by children.

  • Action games
  • Object manipulation games
  • Mental games
  • Imitation games
  • Setting appropriate games
  • Games for particular groups of people

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